When I was a kid, the words that used to shut me down in my tracks were “don’t be silly”. Those words were dismissive and robbed me of any sense of understanding myself and how I engaged with the world around me. I wanted to be a spy, for the greater good of course. I absolutely needed a Secret Sam Spy kit, as I have mentioned more times than you are probably willing to count, but my wishes went unanswered. That’s probably why I am a writer and not a spy. Even now, the ring tone on my cell phone is the theme from James Bond though I must confess that at night when my phone rings, the sinister tone scares me half to death; not the thrill I was looking for, but still.
Maybe my parent’s generation were more pragmatic, and that is understandable if we consider the world experiences that they and their parents before them were obligated to endure. Daydreaming about being a secret agent or an astronaut would have been unlikely. But if we go back further to previous generations, those who struck out in the wilderness to build and to create, then I think they were filled with a large serving of imagination. Why else would they have gone in pursuit of a better life or even had the capacity to imagine it, had they not souls that longed to see their life in a different way.
I often see posts on various social media platforms of suggestions of what should be included in the school curriculum, which seems like just about everything that any child should learn. I’m not sure what we as parents accept responsibility for in teaching our children at home if we insist that the school do it all. I like to think that our education system provides opportunities for our children to dream, to imagine, to experience. Teaching how to maneuver through the business of being alive can be taught at home, but I’m not sure that feeding an imagination can always be manifested in the space where we live. Children need access to what isn’t in their immediate life and at the very least, being and thinking silly thoughts should be on that list.
I recently heard of a man who speaks to educators in British Columbia about what saved him from a life of addiction and poverty. Simply put, it was the access he had as a child to the Arts. Writing and creating music and poetry allowed him to imagine something other than what he was born into. Yet when governments tighten their belts, one of the first cuts they make in education is to the Arts, as though we can live easily without music and without poetry and without visual art and without imagination.
Numerous studies have been done on the importance of art in a child’s development and they all come back to the same conclusion that art allows children self-expression, teaches them to organically make decisions and communicate those choices. Art aids cognitive development and fosters a sense of self-esteem. Art helps children to grow both physically and emotionally while feeding their natural curiosity. When they have opportunities to watch and/or interact with various art forms, they learn to emulate what they see, to imagine themselves in various forms.
We have been told for decades that problem-solving requires a creative mind, one that can “see outside the box”. I’ve seen such minds at work, and I admire the ability, especially considering my own shortcoming in this regard. A teacher, Matt Eicheldinger, I follow on Instagram spoke of being warned by the previous teacher of a student’s disruptive behaviour being a problem, which included him sitting under his desk and refusing to move. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the student retreated under his desk. Mr. Eicheldinger asked if he might join the student under his desk and he discovered the underside of the desk covered in rainbows. These rainbows comforted the boy so Mr. Eicheldinger asked if he might place rainbows around the classroom, which he did. The sitting under the desk never happened again; thinking outside the box and walking in his student’s shoes was the simple solution. The boy could easily have been punished or told not to be silly, but instead a problem was solved, and a child’s soul was empowered.
wendistewart@live.ca
